Even worse.
Armando Villarreal wrenched his eyes open and looked around. The rhythmic drip was IV fluids flowing into his arm, not blood coming out. An electronic node was attached to his finger, beeping along with his heartbeat. His mouth was drier than the Sonoran Desert and his brain felt sluggish. He vaguely remembered getting shot in the back by Chuy Pe?a.
He hated that pinche cabrón.
A dull ache in his side confirmed the injury, but he was more disturbed by a strange discomfort below the waist. He pulled the blanket off his lap and blinked to clear his vision. There was a rubber cup on his penis, with a tube leading down to a urine collection bag. It wasn’t a catheter. He didn’t know what it was, but it had to go. He ripped off the cup and tossed it on the ground. Then he inspected his male parts for damage. They looked okay.
As an afterthought, he checked the bandage on his abdomen. It didn’t feel great, but the wound seemed to be healing well.
“You’re awake.”
He replaced the blanket over his lap and squinted in the direction of a female voice. He wasn’t in a hospital after all. The room was too large. His companion was sitting on a cot in the corner, her reddish-brown hair mussed from sleep. She looked familiar, but he struggled to place her. When she stood up, he saw her white lab coat draped over a nearby chair.
Oh, right. She was that animal doctor. The one he’d kidnapped. He let his head fall back against the pillows, groaning.
“Let me give you something for the pain,” she said.
He was lucid enough to find her offer suspicious. She sounded too calm. What was she doing here? She wouldn’t be with him by choice. He glanced around the room to get his bearings. No windows, bare walls. There was a bathroom with no door on his right; on the left, a heavy wooden door with a metal slot near the bottom that could be used to insert a tray of food.
The details came together like puzzle pieces, drifting into a picture that made sense. He knew this place. He’d seen it before. They were in Carlos Moreno’s secret safe house in TJ. And they’d been here more than one night, judging by the doctor’s unkempt appearance. Her hair was tangled and limp, and there were dark circles under her eyes.
“Stay back,” he said, ripping the IV from his arm with clumsy fingers. He felt slow in a way that couldn’t be explained by his injury. There were several vials on an aluminum tray near his bed. “Have you been drugging me?”
She flinched at the accusation. “I’ve been keeping you comfortable.”
“Why?”
“Why…what?”
“Why take care of me at all?”
She moistened her dry lips. “They said…if you live, I live.”
“Who said that?”
“A man with a scar,” she said, touching her chin.
Jorge Felix. Moreno’s gardener. He wasn’t an active member of the cartel, but that didn’t matter. He was fiercely loyal to the family, and perhaps the only man in their circle who couldn’t be bought. Armando’s chances of escaping this house or bartering a deal were close to nil. Jorge wanted him alive so they could question him. Then kill him.
Armando rubbed a hand over his jaw and was shocked by the amount of stubble he encountered. “How long have I been out?”
“I’m not sure.”
“How many days?”
“Three, I think.”
Three days. He’d lost three days. “You haven’t been keeping me comfortable. You’ve been keeping me unconscious.”
She crossed her arms over her chest. “I’m a veterinarian, remember? I did my best.”
He selected one of the vials and studied it. Morphine. She must have been pumping him with this at regular intervals. She’d been afraid to let him wake up, and not just because he was a threat to her. As soon as he got better, she’d no longer be useful.
It was a clever strategy, but something had gone wrong. Maybe she’d misjudged the amount. Or she’d slept too long and missed an injection. He was lucky she hadn’t accidently overdosed him. But perhaps slipping into a drug-induced death was preferable to hours of torture, followed by a beheading. That was the usual way cartel leaders dealt with traitors.
Like him.
“I want to go home,” she said in a shaky voice.
He had no response for her, no words to calm or comfort her. After a long, awkward moment, she returned to her cot in the corner and cried. He watched her slender shoulders quake with a curious detachment. Her distress should have weighed heavily on him. He was responsible for it, after all. He’d brought her here, knowing the risks involved. There was no safe way to kidnap a woman and take her across the border to a drug lord’s secret hideaway. He’d put her life in danger. The man he used to be would have found that choice appalling. The man he’d become felt almost nothing.
His years on Moreno’s crew had hardened his heart into stone. Sarai was the only person who mattered to him. If he couldn’t save her, why save anyone?
When his arm stopped bleeding, he removed the electronic pulse monitor and sat up. His wound ached, but it was bearable. He swung his legs over the side of the bed and stood gingerly, testing his strength. He didn’t fall over, so he continued to the bathroom. He managed to take a piss and drink some water from the sink without passing out. There was no mirror to reflect his image, which was probably for the best. He pictured a hobbled, buck-naked viejo with tired eyes. He felt older than his forty-one years, and he knew he looked it. His skin was as dark as his Indian mother’s, who’d died in the fields when he was a child. His hands were like leather from working alongside her. And his face…well, it had never been pretty.
He found a stack of clothes near the doorway, so he pulled on a pair of loose sweatpants. Then he started pacing the room, back and forth. He had to get his blood circulating, stay alert. After about two minutes, he leaned against the wall, lightheaded.
“What’s your name?” he asked finally.